Friday, February 1, 2013

The rate of economic growth went into a decline for the
fourth quarter, even massive manipulation of the employment statistics can do
no more than show “slow but steady growth in the jobs market” (we thought that “jobs”
were what produced goods and services for the market; evidently they’re now a
commodity to be traded), and so on.

Naturally the stock market is going through the roof.This is taken as a leading economic indicator
that the (alleged) recovery is in full swing, etc., etc., blah,
blah.Evidently you can fool all of the people all of the time.Why is no one asking, as the stock market
approaches a level unprecedented in its history, just how it is possible that
the national debt is gigantic and unemployment is still high?(If you’ve been reading this blog, you can
make a good guess, otherwise, lots of luck.)

In any event here’s what we’re doing to try and restore a
little sanity to the world:

• The annual Rally at the Fed, to take place on April 26,
2013 in Washington, DC, is starting to look very interesting.You should consider coming and demonstrating
in support of Capital Homesteading to celebrate the end of tax season — and to
gain a little inspiration for the effort to reform our tax and monetary systems
so that you don’t get stuck that way again.

• We located a recording of Fulton Sheen talking on “Does Capitalism Still Exist?”We found Sheen’s theory right on the
mark.The only “flaws” (if you even want
to call them that) are in applying some of the principles and a few facts that
he didn’t have completely straight.Listen to the recording, and see how easily you can fit his talk into
the framework of the Just Third Way with just a few comments and footnotes.

• Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan’s op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, “The Plan to Save
Catholic Schools,” exhibits an openness to new solutions to perennial problems.The search for creative solutions bodes well
for the eventual success of “Justice University,” the revival of the thought of
Fulton Sheen, and the Just Third Way as applied in Capital Homesteading — to
say nothing of CESJ’s alternative healthcare proposal.

• There was an important meeting on Wednesday to discuss the
application of the Just Third Way as far as possible within existing law on a
major food-producing enterprise that has the potential to redevelop blighted
urban areas in ways that benefit all residents, not just outside developers.

• As of this morning, we have had
visitors from 60 different countries and 48 states and provinces in the United
States and Canada to this blog over the past two months. Most visitors are from
the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Philippines, and India.
People in Sweden, South Korea, Nepal, the United States, and the United Kingdom
spent the most average time on the blog. The most popular postings this past
week were “Thomas Hobbes on Private Property,” “News from the Network, Vol. 6,
No. 2,” “Islamic Banking,” “Who Owns Social Security,” and “How to Redeem
Economics.”

Those are the happenings for this week, at least that we
know about.If you have an
accomplishment that you think should be listed, send us a note about it at
mgreaney [at] cesj [dot] org, and we’ll see that it gets into the next “issue.”If you have a short (250-400 word) comment on
a specific posting, please enter your comments in the blog — do not send them
to us to post for you.All comments are
moderated anyway, so we’ll see it before it goes up.